Word: icbms
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...throwing up a variety of diversionary objects. Metallic balloons, dummy warheads, masses of tiny metal strips called chaff, can all be employed to confuse the defenders and force them to waste precious ABMs. The presumption has been all along that the Chinese, who do not yet have an ICBM force in being, could not produce so sophisticated a first-generation missile. Still, Peking will certainly develop its missiles with a broad general knowledge of U.S. defense concepts. "Their deployment," Bethe said recently, "will probably be determined by our ABM system. How long our ABM could keep ahead of them...
MINUTEMAN: the basic U.S. land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which accounts for 1,000 of the 1,054 birds now deployed. The Minuteman series, housed in underground silos to protect the missiles against damage in the event of nuclear attack, is propelled by solid fuel and can be fired 32 seconds after the GO order...
FOLLOWING his opponent's strategy in 1960, Richard Nixon has found a missile gap to talk about. He charges that the Democratic Administration has let America stand still during the last eight years while the Soviets mass-produced ICBM's and by early next year the two countries will probably have the same number of missiles. Although he admits that a halt in the arms race would be desirable. Nixon insists that the United States cannot bargain with the Russians until it re-establishes its superiority in weapons...
According to Pentagon estimates and private studies, Nixon's figures are correct. In the past 18 months this country, with its force of 1054 land-based missiles, has watched the Soviets climb from 340 to about 800 ICBM's. Despite official American predictions, the Soviets seem to be maintaining this pace...
...MIRV also shows that the United States is not standing still. Other American efforts include the modernization of the land-based Minuteman and the 656 sea-based Polaris and Poseidon missiles (which Nixon discounts in his calculations of nuclear superiority). The Soviets' major concern seems to be an ICBM that could follow an orbit through space to its target. Such a weapon could clude an ABMS system but would probably be quite inaccurate...